Writing and English Literature
BA (Hons)

Overview

Want to get published? Learn the all-important techniques by studying some of the world’s most famous writers. Share your writing with published authors and other students in a supportive environment, while developing critical and literary skills that will help you catch the eye of publishers, agents and other employers.

Develop your writing with help from our award winning poets, short story writers and novelists.

On our writing modules, you’ll develop your creative and professional writing skills through independent work as well as in our interactive workshops and seminars. We offer modules in social media and events organisation, and the opportunity to explore the world of publishing. Our teaching staff will give you invaluable feedback – as will your fellow students. Combining this with an exploration of areas such as grammar, style and critical writing, you’ll discover new ways to express your literary talent.

By studying Writing and English Literature, you’ll explore how our most treasured authors approached their craft, and apply this knowledge to your own writing. Our English literature modules allow you to balance your study of traditional writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Dickens and Woolf with an exploration of genres such as modern science fiction, children's literature and contemporary women's writing. We have specialists in nineteenth century radical and religious literature, in modernism, the Gothic and children’s literature.

Throughout the course, you’ll be supported by published writers, critics, journalists and professionals from related fields, who can show you the skills and techniques that publishers look for in new writers.

Our work-based modules, such as Working in English, Communication, Film and Media in Year 3, will give you vital experience of related professions like publishing, the media industries, teaching or arts administration.

If you’re hoping to get published, you can seek advice from our writing tutors, many of whom are published authors, as well as our Royal Literary Fund fellow.

We work closely with the University’s Careers and Employability Service to ensure you receive all the support and advice you need to develop your professional skills. We also host employability events that bring together professionals and practitioners from a variety of disciplines including publishing, modern languages, printing and art design, writing and poetry, media consultancy, teaching, events organisation and festival direction.

Modules & assessment

Year one, core modules

This module will provide you with an outline of the history of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the eighteenth century, including authors such as Chaucer, Marlowe, Milton and Swift. By looking at different literary forms and a variety of authors, you’ll be encouraged to reflect upon what constitutes the ‘canon’. You will also acquire a basic knowledge of terms used in English literary history and learn to think critically about these terms. There will be two assessments for this course: a group presentation and an essay, testing your knowledge of a literary period or text, as well as your ability to read a literary text within a historical and cultural context.

Following on from A History of English Literature from Chaucer to Equiano, this module will give you an outline of the history of English literature from the Romantic period to the present. You will be reading authors like Blake, Tennyson and Wolf as well as less familiar texts, while also acquiring the basic terminology used for English literary history since 1789. There will be two assessments for this course, an essay and an examination, for which you will need to demonstrate your ability to read a literary text within a historical and social context.

This module will introduce you to techniques for developing and sustaining creative writing and teach you how to practice these in your own work. Your studies will be split equally between analysing texts to see what makes them effective for different audiences and practical writing exercises. As the module progresses, you will explore the techniques and conventions of writing short fiction, poetry and dramatic writing and will present your work to your fellow students, simultaneously building a portfolio of imaginative writing to be submitted at the end of the semester, along with a critical commentary evaluating the creative processes you’ve pursued and identifying areas for future development.

You'll learn the essential skills for working with language, for participating in workshops and for undertaking critical evaluation of creative work. The main areas you'll cover are: grammar and style; producing critical commentaries for creative and professional writing assignments; giving and receiving constructive criticism; making language choices in relation to audience expectations and working with drafts. You'll be introduced to key critical and analytical terms and taught how to use these to develop your own writing practice.

This module will introduce you to studying English Literature at University, and allow you to develop skills such as reading critically and communicating clearly.
In the first semester you'll get an overview of the degree structure and examine some key critical terms, problems and approaches for students of English. These include, for example: the literary canon and value; narrative theory; realism and representation; genre; the production of meaning; relationships between literature, history and the world; selected approaches to literature, (including formalist, new historicist, feminist, psychoanalytical and postcolonial criticism) and relationships between literature and identity.
You'll explore these topics through a selection of critical texts and short extracts from plays, novels, short stories and poems (extracts provided). You'll attend a one-hour lecture and a two-hour seminar each week, including a library induction session.

Year one, optional modules

This module will introduce you to the techniques and structures of effective writing in a wide range of non-fiction genres, and will serve as a basis for your subsequent modules in creative and professional non-fiction in year two and three. The types of writing you'll study might include advertising, public information, health and leisure writing, motoring and sports writing and reviews. You'll explore the importance and the key elements of an effective brief, through a range of examples from different professional contexts, and discover key differences between writing destined for print, for the web and for oral presentation. Practical exercises and group editorial work will help you gain confidence and flexibility as an effective communicator. You'll also learn to analyse register, tone, diction, layout and house style, producing and editing material for different purposes and audiences, as well as being introduced to usability theories and techniques for organising web content, and techniques for preparing effective oral presentations.

Year two, core modules

This intensive reading and writing module will introduce you to the techniques of print journalism, focusing on news reports and feature articles. The skills required for effective news and feature writing are a key component of writing craft in any genre of fiction or non-fiction. It's a discipline that improves the imaginative work and communicative power of those who practice it. You'll explore the significance of journalistic writing in contemporary life using examples from a range of British tabloid, broadsheet and local publications. You'll practise sourcing news reports, developing feature articles and sub-editing for style and content. In seminar workshops, you'll combine analysis of journalistic techniques with practical writing exercises, covering topics that include: researching and pitching a story; interviewing; puns and rhythm; and economical use of language. Early on, you'll produce a set of briefs that must be approved by the seminar leader, then produce copy for these briefs and, in editorial teams, giving and receiving constructive criticism.

This module will introduce you to a generically varied range of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. They highlight some of the most contested issues of the day, issues which continue to inspire debate today: kingship, power, sexuality, gender, justice, morality and religion. Later audiences, readers and critics have of course contributed to these original dialogues and debates, adding new voices and perspectives in both creative and critical responses to the plays. You'll explore these issues in lectures and seminars, drawing on primary texts, secondary criticism, and later creative responses to the plays, including film. You'll also discuss wider issues of the study of English and how it relates to employability.

This intensive reading and writing module will introduce you to the techniques and conventions of dramatic writing, with an emphasis on writing for stage performance. You'll study the skills and knowledge required to create effective performance texts through a combination of reading, critical analysis of diverse examples from the genre, practical writing exercises and readings of students' own work in progress. You'll also explore elements of dramatic writing such as monologue, dialogue, narrative, character and physical and vocal connection, learning the conventions of presentation for dramatic texts. In later sessions, you'll workshop sustained pieces of dramatic writing, confronting the challenges of audience and staging. Your finished dramatic text will be assessed in the form of a ten-minute script. You must also submit a critical commentary addressing specific aspects of the writing process, including questions of staging.

On this module, you'll learn the techniques of effective short fiction writing, beginning with the literary short story and moving on to explore short fiction for younger readers and some areas of genre fiction. You'll be introduced to the scope and the conventions of short fiction in English through an analysis of a diverse range of classic and contemporary examples, examining the creative process from the collection of ideas at notebook stage to the production and editing of a finished narrative. Authors studied on the module may include Anton Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield and Edgar Allen Poe. Your writing exercises will focus on practical writing techniques for effective work, with key elements such as characterisation, setting, structure, movement in time and space, observation, point of view, opening and closing, voice, dialogue, cliché, description and dialogue. For assessment, you'll submit the best work you produce during the module, along with a critical commentary that'll include a contribution to your Personal Development Planning file.

Year two, optional modules

On this module, you'll explore Romanticism and Revolution - two concepts that are often usefully linked. You'll study literature by focusing on a sequence of key political events, rather than focusing on the 'self'. This, and focusing on writing that attempts to 'intervene in' the public world, will allow you to draw connections between the three phases of Romanticism, and to examine a variety of canonical and non-canonical authors, and writing in a variety of genres. You'll also examine the emergence of popular literature, the kind of writing that dissolves the difference between the 'high' and the 'low', as produced by figures such as William Hone, and Shelley in his Mask of Anarchy. You'll be assessed through a 2,500 word essay (semester 1) and a ten minute presentation and exam (semester 2).

On this year-long module, you'll engage with Victorian texts and their various contexts in both breadth and depth. You'll examine texts in relation to key historical developments and the issues to which these developments gave rise and currency. In the first semester, your main literary focus will be on poetry (such as Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning), interspersed with a consideration of relevant contextual topics and debates (such as industrialisation and gender issues). In the first half of the second semester, your work will be devoted to mid-Victorian fiction. You'll compare novels by, for example, Dickens and Gaskell, which offer different models of realism and different versions of a search for identity, with reference to the contextual issues introduced in the first semester. For the rest of the module time, you'll explore literary and contextual developments in the late Victorian period, assessing generic innovations (the 'new' drama of Wilde and Shaw, short stories by Kipling, Vernon Lee and Olive Schreiner) in relation to contextual novelties, such as the new woman, the new imperialism, socialism and aestheticism.

On this module you'll explore the meanings that were once attached to the British Empire and how some 19th and early 20th century writers expressed their often contradictory and ambivalent attitudes to the imperial project and the responsibilities of running an empire. These writers may include Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster, Flora Annie Steele, and George Orwell. You'll then read and analyse selected texts by writers from nations which have won their independence from Britain (for example Derek Walcott and Ama Ata Aidoo), comparing them with texts written from European perspectives. You'll also be introduced to the ideas of post-colonial theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Babha, and discuss influential critical concepts such as orientalism, the subaltern and mimicry. At the end of the module you'll examine the significance of multicultural ideas and examples of writing produced by both first- and second-generation immigrants to Britain, possibly including some film or television material. Your assessment will take the form of a 3000-word essay.

This module will introduce you to a range of key poetic and prose texts produced by canonical and non-canonical early modern authors. One of the characteristics of the literature of this period is its dialogic nature. Many of these texts give the reader two or more perspectives on an issue, asking questions that often remain unanswered. In addition to these internal debates, the texts are often also in dialogue with each other. Translations, adaptations, parodies, flytings, prequels and sequels will give you insights into the ways texts can speak to one another. You'll explore these issues in lectures and seminars, investigating the relationship between the set texts and their literary, cultural and historical contexts.

In this module you'll explore the cultural and technological contexts of the publishing of literary works, and the history of the publishing industry in Britain. You'll examine its styles, types and trajectories, and consider that history in light of the market for books, pamphlets and periodicals, and the issues (such as new technology, new infrastructure, copyright and censorship) that have affected them. Your assessment will consist of an independently-researched portfolio, including a critical assessment of an issue identified in the seminars, accompanied by supporting evidence presented as a blog, a series of slides, an electronic scrap book, or in an alternative electronic format of your own choice.

On this module, you'll study the skills and techniques needed to create successful historical fiction for a range of media (prose, TV, film radio, and other). You'll consider the issues which arise while trying to create a fictional 'historical past', and experiment with different techniques of conjuring the past, with reference to place, voice, character, food, manners and mores. You'll also consider the needs of different audiences and different platforms from the demands of a staged or radio play through to the differences between the scope of a short story and novel. Your assessment will be a 2,000-word piece of fiction (for any media or platform), and an accompanying 1,000-word critical portfolio.

On this module you'll examine a range of medieval English literature, focusing on the late 14th century, and exploring the links between literature and a changing society.
You'll examine, through careful close reading, the complex relationship between text and context, considering greater realism in the representation of the Judaeo-Christian myth in the context of threats to the feudal system.
You'll study mystery plays, romances and religious literature alongside selected Tales by Chaucer, and the re-appropriations of myth in a case study that suggests the wider links between myth and ideology.
You'll study extracts from each text in the original Middle English, though good recent translations by modern poets will also be available, allowing you to pursue the question of the inevitable re-inflection of myth in changing cultural contexts.

The designated topic for this module, which changes from year to year, is Writing World War 1. There are no formal lectures and the module is taught in seminars, in which you'll be encouraged to take part in group discussions. You'll be assessed by a 3,000 word essay, allowing you to demonstrate your understanding of everything has been covered on the module, including your knowledge of set texts.

This module will build on the skills you learned in the short fiction film module. Having understood the short film format, you'll now apply your skills to the more demanding task of understanding the feature film. You'll produce a portfolio including the first act of a screenplay with evidence of analytical story structure skills, including a focused analysis of genre in a series of self-managed presentations. As a key element of this module, you'll study the work of well-known screenwriters, in particular Kaufman, Schrader, Mamet and Ball, whose work will be critically discussed as potential models. You'll also study established film-makers, including the Coen Brothers, Darren Aronofksy, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Charlie Kaufman, Paul Thomas Anderson and Gus Van Sant, as examples of writer directors.

Year three, core modules

Through critical examination of modern and contemporary poems, you'll learn to explore important developments in technique and appreciate the benefits of close reading to open up possibilities for language use. You’ll develop sophisticated approaches to the relationship between form and content. You'll engage in advanced workshop treatment of your poems, moving beyond explanation of sources and meanings to explore process, form and audience. The seminar topics may include modelling, seeds and sources, working with journals, presentation of poetry on and off the page, working with sound and visual material, and redrafting. Your assessment will be a selection of poems accompanied by reflective writing that explores key issues of process.

On this module, you'll study a range of fiction from 1990 onwards, examining formal and thematic issues and the relationships between them.
You'll consider narrative experimentation (the recycling of old stories and forms, the representation of history) and the interrelated topics of voice, place and community. As there is inevitably an absence of established critical texts on the contemporary works studied, you'll also consider alternative methods of reading, alternative sources of critical opinion (academic journals, the internet, broadsheet and broadcast journalism), and the ways in which new novels demand and shape new criticism.
You'll be assessed through a 3,000 word essay at the end of the semester.

Year three, optional modules

The individual Major Project will allow you to undertake a substantial piece of individual research, focused on a topic relevant to your specific course.
Your topic will be assessed for suitability to ensure sufficient academic challenge and satisfactory supervision by an academic member of staff. The project will require you to identify/formulate problems and issues, conduct research, evaluate information, process data, and critically appraise and present your findings/creative work.
You should arrange and attend regular meetings with your project supervisor, to ensure that your project is closely monitored and steered in the right direction.

This module is equivalent to the Major Project module in English and related subjects. You will work independently, with guidance from an approved adviser or mentor, to produce a longer piece of writing or coherent set of shorter pieces. This may be in any genre, including imaginative writing, creative non-fiction or professional writing, provided you can find a suitable consultant to support the project. Approval may also be given for a major editorial project, for example leadership of the university writers magazine. Three seminar sessions will support you through the main stages of your project, enabling you to review strategies and content. A maximum of 4 hours individual consultation time will be available to you in addition to the seminars. Your work towards the final project will consist of four overlapping stages: reading and research (including consideration of audience) resulting in project proposal; drafting (with further reading and research as necessary); editing, re-drafting and more specific audience engagement; reflection and critical evaluation. Your work towards these stages will be reviewed in the seminar sessions. You will produce a proposal accompanied by extracts from your reading journal at an early stage in the project. This you will submit directly to your individual supervisor - it will not be formally assessed. You will then produce a portfolio of writing and a critical commentary, presented to professional standards appropriate to the genre(s) you are working in.

This module focuses on literary Modernism from the turn of the 20th century to the 1930s. You'll explore the ways in which the distinctive features of Modernist writing - subjectivity, the psychological, innovations in form, style and genre - are produced by urban experience. You'll study a range of texts that 'write' the city in order to explore the centrality of urban culture to modernity and the avant garde. You'll also discuss the cultural exchanges occurring in London, Paris and New York with reference to ideas of exile and expatriation. You'll consider the internationalism of the Modernist period, as well as its interdisciplinarity. These texts will show you different reactions to the early 20th century city, in relation to ethnicity, gender and class, and will include examples of both canonical and non-canonical writing.

This module will introduce you to the scope and conventions of scriptwriting across three forms – film, television, and radio – through analysis of a diverse range of classic and contemporary examples. You'll examine the creative process and engage in this process by maintaining a reading journal and writer's notebook. The feature screenplays you'll study may include screenplays by Charlie Kaufman, Sophia Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Aaron Sorkin, while television series may include Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Returned. Audio material may include selected Afternoon Plays and radio comedy series. Your writing exercises will focus on practical writing techniques such as writing an effective treatment or outline, and exploring the different techniques needed for different broadcast mediums. For assessment, you'll submit the best work you produce at the end of the year, along with a critical commentary that'll include a contribution to your Personal Development Planning file.

The designated topic for this module, which changes from year to year, is Theorising Children’s Literature. There are no formal lectures and the module is taught in seminars, in which you'll be encouraged to take part in group discussions. You'll be assessed by a 3,000 word essay, allowing you to demonstrate your understanding of everything has been covered on the module, including your knowledge of set texts.

This module, with a focus on work experience, will help prepare you for targeted entry into the world of multimedia, film, television, cinema, radio, video, teaching, publishing, arts administration and related creative and cultural industries. You'll identify, negotiate and carry out a work placement, or produce a commissioned product, in a chosen area, with guidance from the relevant Course Leader and Module Leader, who will provide ongoing consultation, supervision and support in association with the University's Careers Service. You'll develop a portfolio and write a critical essay, both of which you'll submit at the end of the semester. Your portfolio should include: your CV; copies of a range of academic work (including a DVD showreel, where appropriate); evidence of extra-curricular activities; evidence of work experience. Presentation is crucial to your portfolio, and you should make use of all available multi-media when refining your work. This module will form part of your ongoing programme of Personal Development Planning.

This module will introduce you to the strategies of adaptation and to the afterlives of canonical literary texts. Through a series of case studies, you will analyse and debate Walter Benjamin's claim that 'storytelling is always the art of repeating stories' and Linda Hutcheon's description of adaptation as repetition 'but repetition without replication.' You’ll also explore adaptation across time of both specific canonical texts and literary archetypes such as the fairy tale, the diverse ways in which biblical and classical texts have been adapted, the appropriation of literary texts into the mediums of stage, radio and screen, and the appropriation of historical events and persons into fiction.

In this module, you'll study the development of modern science fiction, concentrating on major texts from the postwar period. You'll acquire a detailed knowledge of the history of science fiction and a critical understanding of the problems of defining it in relation to other forms of literature, as well as gaining an understanding of the distinctive pleasures that science fiction offers its readers. The emphasis will be on science fiction as a distinctive literature of ideas.
You'll primarily consider science fiction as a literary form rather than with its manifestations in other media, but the demands of adapting science fiction to other media will also be considered. You'll read an anthology of short stories, a history and a collection of critical essays supplemented by recommended novels (used to exemplify different phases of science fiction from the 1930s to the present day, including 'The Golden Age', the British 'New Wave', cyberpunk and World SF).
You'll be assessed through one essay of 3,000 words, showing your good knowledge and understanding of at least three texts.

Like a final exhibition, this module allows you to 'showcase' your writing, preparing it for presentation to publishers or employers. You'll need to review the development of your work and achievements over the duration of the course, and select examples of your imaginative and professional writing to form a portfolio that best reflects your work.
You may redraft where appropriate and, in a critical overview, can explain your choices and progress as a writer. This overview will contribute to your Personal Development Planning.
You'll arrange meetings, up to a maximum of 2 hours, with your own personal supervisor for individual advice. You'll also attend two seminars, which will support you through the process of selecting work and writing the critical overview. At the end of the year, you'll be encouraged to perform or read work from your portfolios to an audience of staff, students and invited guests.

Starting with an exploration of the various modes within which film journalism functions, this module will guide you through the world of professional film journalism, giving you the skills and knowledge to create original features for a variety of readerships in a range of media. You’ll look at working with editors; planning and structuring interviews; developing, drafting and revising reviews and features; and developing a personal style. Your explorations will be reinforced by regular formative assignments, leading to the creation of your own portfolio of work.

In this module you will be introduced to the art of creative non-fiction, beginning with William Hazlitt and the art of the essay as it has developed in the English Language and exploring the concept of what is creative non-fiction. Using the key text, and additional collections, you will explore issues of style, research, and personal expression. We will further discuss platforms, contexts, readerships and the differences between essaying, and feature writing. For your assessment you will produce a portfolio consisting of three short pieces of writing in different genres of creative non-fiction, and one which will help develop a substantive piece in a genre of your choice.

This module will introduce you to a range of C20th and C21st literary representations of exile. To be in exile is to be banished from one’s home, to be displaced and/or estranged from one’s country, family, community, and even one’s self. Exile takes many forms: it can be literal or metaphorical; it can be enforced or self-imposed. Through close readings of novels, graphic novels, poetry, autobiography and short stories, many of which were written by authors in exile, you will explore various forms of exile writing and consider various conditions and contexts of exile, including politics, race, sexuality, genderand disability. At the start of the module, you will be introduced to a range of theories of exile; you will explore these theories each week in relation to the selected literary texts and related themes of memory, home, identity, community, nostalgia, self, and language. The module schedule will also include a guest lecture and/or half day field trip (museum, refugee organisation, local charities and groups), allowing you to engage with ‘real world’ experiences of exile. You will be assessed by means of a final 3000-word essay, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of what has been covered on the module including your knowledge of the set texts and grasp of the key theories and ideas that have informed the course.

Optional modules available all years

The Anglia Language Programme allows you to study a foreign language as part of your course. You'll take one language module in the second semester of your first year in order to experience the learning of a new language. You must select a language you've never learnt before from the following: Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

Each year you’ll prepare a Personal Development Portfolio, which includes a CV and personal statement. This will give you the chance to reflect on your progress to date, the skills you’ve developed and any extracurricular activities that will help you when looking for work.

Where you'll study

Your department and faculty

The Department of English and Media is a community of more than 800 students, exploring subjects that further their understanding of culture and communication in the global age, from film studies to applied linguistics. We focus on skills and knowledge valued by employers, and provide our students with valuable industry insight through our links with creative partners.

Our students take part in many activities to help prepare them for the future, like work placements, study abroad opportunities, talks by internationally acclaimed guest speakers, and research conferences. They even have the chance to get writing advice from our Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

We’re part of the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences, a hub of creative and cultural innovation whose groundbreaking research has real social impact.

Where can I study?

Study abroad options

You can apply to spend one semester in Years 2 or 3 studying at Universidad de Huelva, Spain or Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA.

Cultural activities and events

We organise many extra-curricular activities, like the annual three-day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon theatre, poetry and writing evenings, and research symposia and conferences. You’ll also be able to join the Anglia Ruskin Literary Society, which organises trips to local plays and poetry readings, organises workshops, and hosts guest speakers and performance evenings; or Cambridgeshire Ink, a writing website run by graduates from the course.

Fees & funding

Course fees

UK & EU students, 2016/17 (per year)

£9,000

International students, 2016/17 (per year)

£11,000

UK & EU students, 2017/18 (per year)

£9,250

International students, 2017/18 (per year)

£11,700

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For more information about tuition fees, including the UK Government's commitment to EU students, please see our UK/EU funding pages

How do I pay my fees?

Tuition fee loan

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Most English undergraduates take out a tuition fee loan with Student Finance England. The fees are then paid directly to us. The amount you repay each month is linked to your salary and repayments start in April after you graduate.

Funding for international students

Entry requirements

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Important additional notes

Our published entry requirements are a guide only and our decision will be based on your overall suitability for the course as well as whether you meet the minimum entry requirements. Other equivalent qualifications may be accepted for entry to this course, please email answers@anglia.ac.uk for further information.

We don't accept AS level qualifications on their own for entry to our undergraduate degree courses. However for some degree courses a small number of tariff points from AS levels are accepted as long as they're combined with tariff points from A levels or other equivalent level 3 qualifications in other subjects.

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International students

We welcome applications from international and EU students, and accept a range of international qualifications.

Get more information

UK & EU applicants

International applicants

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